Surbiton sex-swap student Sara Jane Stevens has died suddenly of a rare heart condition.
The 46 year old transexual collapsed in Weybridge High Street (Surrey, England) and was pronounced dead on arrival at St Peter's Hospital, Chertsey.
She had developed a "floppy mitral valve" - a malfunction that is impossible to diagnose and can strike a victim dead within minutes.
Only days before her death the transexual, a familiar figure in Kingston, had called Rebecca English of the Surrey Comet in deep despair about the way her life was going. She claimed few people were willing to accept her as she was and threatened to take her own life. She was also depressed that her court case to ban discrimination against transexuals was supposedly being thwarted at every turn.
However this week the Chertsey assistant coroner said she died from natural causes. And he stressed that there was no indication that her condition had been caused by the extensive surgery she had undergone to change sex. Sara Jane was a prisoner of gender. She made national headlines when the Comet exclusively revealed she was thrown out of the women-only Hillcroft College in Surbiton. Tutors claimed she was still legally a man and jeopardised their immunity from sex discrimination laws.
She refused to leave and was handcuffed by police and lead from the premises. The college then won a court injunction to ban her from going anywhere near the site.
Sara Jane said at the time: "I may have been born a man but I'm all woman now and that's what counts. I have been through hell to become a woman and yet I am been discriminated against.
"All I want to do is get on with my life; narrow-minded people continually stop me."
Born Michael Richard Bradley, Sara Jane always insisted she was a woman trapped in a man's body. She spent years living a double life of despair and confusion and attempted suicide on a number of occasions.
Sara Jane finally made the decision to live as a woman in 1988. And three years ago she underwent a six-hour sex-swap operation, combining it with cosmetic surgery on her face and breasts.
Just days before her death she told the Comet reporter that she intended to take her case to the European Court of Human Rights.
She was outraged that while a transexual is allowed to change his or her passport, they cannot change their birth certificate and therefore cannot legally change sex.
She had also said: "I had had a job interview recently and the man repeatedly asked me what operation I had been through. I refused to tell him and didn't get the job. I have been unemployed for years - what kind of life do I face with prejudice such as this.
"All I ever wanted was a job, marriage and someone to accept me for what I am."
Contributed by Susan Parker
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